Cadarence slipped the controls into manual
and plunged the craft towards the boiling
mass below.
The great red, orange and yellow bands
grew larger, closer, and as they did, they
lost their forms. Colours became inter-mingled,
overlapping, merging; new patterns were
evident and then, in a fleeting instant
gone, moving on, as both his sense of scale
changed, and the great forces that dominated
them pulled them into new contortions.
Vast winds shaped this planet, the currents
of which where the match of all of Earth’s
oceans, swallowed up like the eddies of
a spoon in a cup of coffee. These great
gales, ever circling around the sleeping
giant, pushed and pulled the gases trapped
within them, causing ripples along their
never static borders to appear, then disappear,
torn to shreds where they met and seemingly
argued about continent-sized points.
The planet was rushing closer now, growing
ever more massive in his view, soon blotting
out everything else, leaving only this swirling
sea of boiling helium, hydrogen, and many
more exotic gases. As he drew in, he was
fascinated by the myriad of infinitely changing
details. So much so that he lost track of
the distance.
A handful of warning lights began to flash
on the display. Blinking, gently at first,
simply reminding him of the presence of
extraordinary danger. As he, in his tiny
module grew closer, dwarfed utterly by the
vastness of the planet below, the flashing
of the lights became more insistent. Their
numbers increased, and they were joined
by buzzers and alarms. A voice began to
chant warnings at him, as if the very craft
itself was scared of the immense beast that
was about to swallow them whole.
Pull up, it was saying. Warning,
it chanted. Danger, high pressure,
it told him.
Cadarence, dragging himself from the colossal
beauty before him, pulled back on the controls
and their descent became a much gentler
one. He felt the drag of momentum and experienced,
for a moment, an uncomfortable g force pulling
him heavily into his seat. But the craft’s
artificial gravity fields quickly compensated
and everything returned to normal.
The voice fell silent; the blinking of
lights and the distracting buzzings steadily
became less urgent, however it was already
too late to avoid plunging into the thick,
gaseous interior of the planet. They swept
in, like a tiny gnat falling into the pacific.
How many people have seen this,
he thought to himself. How many have
gazed into the heart of the planet itself,
not just looked down on it from above?
Very few was the answer.
The planet’s current occupants were
notoriously unwelcoming to the casual visitor,
and he didn’t doubt that interceptors
were already scrambling to meet this potential
threat. Perhaps, he considered, if the craft
had been bigger and his intent more obviously
hostile, they would have already shot him
from the sky. He’d have gotten quite
the view of the planets interior then, he
was sure.
Even here, still close to the edge, everything
had become much darker now, as the light
from the sun – already weakened by
the great distance – struggled to
make its way into the planet’s sludgy
interior. It became diffuse; a mere glow
that, whilst all-pervasive, was much weaker,
stained a deep orange and red by the enormous
volumes that surrounded him.
There was a thunk to his left as one of
the craft’s thin skin panels deformed
under the enormous weight of gas. More worryingly,
there was a cracking, scricthing noise,
small at first, but then steadily louder
that seemed to be coming from the edge of
cockpit canopy. The pressure was much higher
than Earth standard atmosphere and various
scrolling displays were complaining about
the situation. Cadarence, enraptured by
what he was seeing didn’t really care
about any of this.
A screen to his right flicked into life,
showing the blips of three approaching craft
on the radar. Next to the display a rather
ominous light started to glow blue. Cadarence
knew that that particular light meant the
approaching craft had already painted him
with a weapons lock. The manners,
he thought. Not even a verbal warning.
But he knew when he was beaten – time
to get out of here.
He pulled up sharply, escaping the planet’s
gravity in a great rush. Lights began to
flash again, but different ones this time;
these indicating the strain he was putting
on the craft’s small frame and its
engines. He pushed them harder for the hell
of it, and then suddenly he burst from the
cloud tops overhead and rushed back out
into space, great contrails of unusual chemicals
billowing off of the craft, boiling from
its wings and clearly marking his point
of exit for all to see.
Cadarence inhaled hugely, closed his eyes,
smiled and then let the air escape again
in a great, relaxing whoosh.
How long had he been up here? There weren’t
many humans that had passed the exams, fewer
still that were qualified to work on the
solar system transports, and he guessed
the number of pilots could probably be counted
on the fingers of one hand.
How lucky he was, to see the things he
did.
“-derence!” He didn’t
know how long Captain Chiltan had been calling
him. Part of him didn’t care.
“Cadarence!” the insistent
voice came again.
He flicked the comms out of passive.
“Yes?” he replied as if diving
into the depths of a massive gas giant was
an everyday occurrence.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Oh, just going for a dip.”
“A dip? Christ, man, that pods not
rated to withstand atmospheric pressure,
let alone what you’ve just put it
through. Not to mention the stink the natives
are kicking up. You want me to patch them
through to you? Don’t think I won’t.”
“Sorry,” Cadarence replied,
grinning.
“Sorry?” the Captain yelled.
The image of the normally blue Actellian
turning a vivid shade of red that gave a
spectacular outward representation of the
rage within caused Cadarence’s grin
to broaden further. “Sorry is for
people who regret what they’ve done!”
he continued. “Now get your disgusting
human hide up here, we’re heading
for Io.”
“Aye-aye, Captain,” he said,
and turned for home. |
